The official start of the Lenten season began this past week and we have heard many of our friends and colleagues talking about what they were going to give up for the 40 days leading up to the celebration of Christ's resurrection.

The camera crews and on-air personality from Atlanta's Channel 11 were in Newton County last week for some in-your-face television journalism aimed at revealing to the world the sorry state of affairs in our local county government.

The Newton County BOC held their first meeting of 2015 last week and among its agenda items was its annual appointments. One of those appointments was that of county attorney, and the reappointment was Tommy Craig.

The folks over at the Newton County Juvenile Court are also community heroes; they recognize that a court dispenses justice but in the case of juveniles it should dispense understanding solutions to that justice, and to that end they are volunteering to help the Ride For Reading bike ride to benefit the Learning Center.

In case you had a doubt at all that the government-run health program being pushed by the Obama administration will not only be a financial drain for the taxpayers of this country as well as essentially destroy the free enterprise health system we currently enjoy, you need to be aware that the Wal-Mart corporation has come out in full support of the president's program. This is a company that has fought for years against offering its employees fair and valuable health benefits and only provides them today because of the threat of unionization of its employees.

It's amazing to us that city of Los Angeles, which has a budget shortfall of $5 billion, is going to spend a minimum of $2.5 million to facilitate the extravagant funeral of a man who did nothing but waste money on himself.

Judge Sammy Ozburn has made the final cut and is on the governor's short list for the vacant Georgia Supreme Court post. We suggest that if you agree with us in thinking Judge Ozburn will make an excellent justice, then you should drop the governor a line in the next two weeks and tell him your thoughts about our judge.

We don't know what's going on here; it seems like every day we are publishing stories of our younger people killing each other, being arrested for drug abuse and carelessly leaving children in hot parked cars.

There are reports coming in that teenagers are roaming around quiet scenic roads in our county, in broad daylight, throwing full jars of mustard and ketchup into unsuspecting passing cars.

Tomorrow, as a community and with our nation, we celebrate the 233rd year since the signing of the Declaration of Independence from England. In honor of that day and for the courage undertaken by 40 brave men, on page 4A we are running a copy of this great masterpiece.